


Whirlpool Take Me Down, Don't Drown Me

by HuggerMuggered



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Merfolk and Pirates AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuggerMuggered/pseuds/HuggerMuggered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lindsay Tuggey was dying, drowning really. She knew it would end like this someday. If not the sea it would have been the rope or a sword- A Pirates life can end only a few ways. But she was never expecting to be saved: Especially not saved and then dumped onto a deserted island with a Cleric and a Merchant's Son who swear they're taken care of by Merfolk.</p>
<p>She's going to build a boat, and get the hell off this island before the crazy catches; or, well, that was the plan.</p>
<p>Until the Merfolk made sure she knew that wouldn't be allowed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whirlpool Take Me Down, Don't Drown Me

Lindsay looks to the dead sails as though they are her death sentence, and in fact they very well could be. When winds die down and men are trapped in the middle of the ocean with water running low and no one to blame, they always look for an answer.

She keeps her head low and scrubs the deck with the other three cabin boys, pretending she cannot feel the discomfort of the bandages wrapped around her chest or the itch of her hair on the nape of her neck, leaving her skin to the scorch of the sun. Cutting it had been a necessity-- they would know her for a woman otherwise. Her soft face and hands can be explained by a late adolescence, but to keep her hair long would be foolish.

The captain paces anxiously. It is their third day without wind and before long his men may choose to mutiny should they decide God is punishing their captain for his wicked deeds. None of the crew ever seem to blame their own wickedness, Lindsay has learned. Then again, pirates are rarely moral enough to find themselves wicked.

“Lindon-” One of the boys states, calling out to Lindsay. She turns her head at her false name, fright in her eyes. The captain is over them, watching. Perhaps he is about to make a remark that will send her to her death; she has heard stories of what people will do to girls on the waves of the sea.

“The other brush- Pass it to me.”

She exhales and tosses the spare brush from her own bucket of water to the boy and then gets back to her work. She is safe- She has given them nothing to suggest that she is not a boy like any of the other tossers they picked up at the wairf on their last docking.

Disaster always waits until she is the most comfortable.

Lindsay is turned out of her hammock that night in a push and pull of growling anger and frightening snarls. The men around her are large behemoths with smells of salt and sea and sweat- and they pull her and the other cabin boys up onto the deck with only words of ‘hurry up’ and ‘c’mon boy’. All of the boys’ teeth chatter- they fear this thing.

They are to be blamed, for everything.

The captain, in all his wisdom, has chosen to blame the winds on something they must have picked up at the wairf. Nothing has changed since their last sail- except the employment of cabin boys. There were two, before, and they stand to the back as Lindsay and the blond boy who’d asked for her brush are pushed to the front and brought to attention.

“Which one of you cursed these sails?!” The man in front of them asks, an old sailor with wild eyes who takes over when the captain does not speak. “WHICH ONE!?”

Lindsay had been ready for solidarity- for truth. Instead the blond boy points to her, crying fat tears from his eyes, and she cannot stop the wild man from grabbing her by the arms and pulling her to the front. She screams at him, high and pitched as he pulls the hat from her head and throws it to the deck and then tears her coat in the haste to try and find any mark of the devil on her- anything that would explain the dead winds and the sails sitting loose.

Instead he finds her bandages- and throws her onto the deck hard and fast.

“A GIRL!” He screeches, and the rest of the crew follows suit. They are all frightened, scared and superstitious. Even as they pull her away she makes sure to glare and spit at the boy who has doomed her- she sees the regret in his eyes as he realizes what he has done, but she hopes that he drowns as soon as the winds come high and fast and blow the ship over-- The second she is dead at the bottom of the sea, she hopes he follows.

“Damn you and the ship!” She says, high and scared at the edge of the railing as they tie her hands and weight her feet. It is not enough to throw her overboard-- they want her well and truly dead. “Damn you all! The winds will come up high and fast and blow you down to the depths to follow me!”

The crew grumbles and someone shoves a rag into her mouth to shut her up. She tastes salt, and her tongue dries up. For a moment she thinks ‘i am thirsty’, and then she realizes that any wish for water now is an irony spent ill.

Damn the lot of them.

They hold her up against the railing- hands on her shirt to keep her in place so she will not fall. The boys, bless the other boys, are crying out against it. They shout for the men to leave her alone, to keep her aboard.

She wonders if they do it out of pity, or need.

“God rest yer soul.” The captain says, standing beside her finally. This is her goodbye- her funeral. She is not grateful.

He nods, and like a stone she flies.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They have been watching the ship in shifts, and Gavin has had enough of it.

Let Ray and Ryan take a turn-- let Geoff and Jack do this work themselves. Gavin has plans to commit to and things to focus on below the waves- things that do not give his pearlescent skin burns from the harsh sun, that to not make his tail throb by the end of the day from staying in place so long.

Michael has another mind on the matter- and it’s useless to argue.

They are careful, swimming below the doomed ship. They do not come close to the surface where their scales glimmer and their hair breaks the waves. They do not allow for mortal sight. Gods know what a human would do with a mermaid, in these days. Geoff’s legends are enough to scare them into the depths- enough to keep them hidden.

Their watch began as soon as the ship entered their sea, close to the island in the distance that they keep as home. The caves beneath the beaches there are full of their plunder- the island above is full of their toys. The lagoon keeps them well supplied with fish, and the sea with their entertainment.

Gavin wonders if any of the leggy one will try and swim, once their water runs out. That is the only reason they watch.

“Michael please- They’ve days at least.” Gavin begs, and it’s true. The ship is dead in the water but they should have more than enough fresh to keep themselves alive another week on the sea. The winds will pick up within time and they will fly away above the waves and leave them in peace. There are no storms coming.

Michael gives him no answer, tail flickering as he darts for another go around the ship’s base, and Gavin sighs in a stream of bubbled air.

This is boring and pointless, and his tail is sore. He wants to swim home with Michael and lay under the fall of the lagoon- cool and in the shade. Perhaps their toys will have the land-fruits today; he loves the green ones that pop and turn his mouth sour.

Michael is doubling back, and his eyes are wide.

“Other side, now.” He orders, and then he is gone again. Gavin flickers after him in a flash of green scales, chasing the orange-brown bronze of the other man’s fin. There is something happening then, that they have to see.

Upon looking up, out of the breaking waves above them, he sighs in annoyance.

“It’s a tosser.” He says, crossing his arms and looking at Michael angrily. “It’s nothing good- probably a sick one that’s taking up too much of their water.”

Michael does not seem convinced.

“Love just let it drop and drown- let’s go home!” Gavin says, swimming back a bit. Michael does not turn and listen, as he normally would. he is staring up and out of the water like there is a letter from the sky awaiting to arrive.

Gavin sighs- He hates watching them drown.

Up above them the shapes struggle, and then suddenly one is growing larger and larger. It breaks the waves and falls low and deep- And Gavin expects the struggle to start. It will throw its arms out and kick it’s split legs and attempt to find the surface, confused and disoriented from the long drop.

Instead it sinks, steadily. Gavin feels confused.

Michael follows it.

“Michael!” He shouts, voice through the waves far too loud. He does not like the way Michael is focusing on it. If it is already dead there will be nothing but disappointment and anger once they get home. He wants to just let it go.

He follows Michael down and sees what he sees- the sideways struggle without any arms or legs. The body is shaped like theirs- tapered at the fin ends, except it has two legs. They are tied to an iron ball, which drags it down, down. It’s arms are tied tight to its back.

He sees the flash of the human’s red hair, and Michael’s decision.

“Michael no!” He shouts, watching the other man flash downward and grab, pulling at the ropes that hold the thing down and beginning to hack at it with the stone blade he carries while swimming. “We’re not meant to! Geoff will be so angry!”

Michael glares at him and tugs, the body coming up quickly now that the weight is gone. The white thing with a shock of red hair has gone limp and lean, arms floating free in the water. Gavin swims alongside Michael, watching him struggle with the thing, and finally gives in.

“Bloody- fine!” He shouts, pulling on his own arm of the creature.

They tug it up and above the waves, breaking the surface and hauling the human up for air. Michael squeezes at its belly, forcing water out of places it should not be-- it does not have gills as they do. It is not meant for the surf.

“Happy?” He asks, throat dry in open air as the human coughs and slumps to the side, barely breathing. “I hope you are-- YOU can explain it to Geoff.”

Michael grins, teeth flashing.

“Don’t you want another toy?” He asks, looking fiercely proud. “One for us- when all the others belong to someone else. This one is ours- we caught it.”

Gavin pouts, but keeps his arms around the red-headed toy.

“Well alright. We’ll tell him together.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> New chapters incoming eventually. This prompt got so out of hand so quickly that I've become inspired.


End file.
